22 February 2010
Tips on How to Fight the Recession
Posted by Crystal under: News; Recession Tips & Tricks .
The slumping economy has had a negative effect on many industries, including restaurants. Consumers’ attitudes toward eating out have changed, and people now carefully budget for meals at restaurants. With this new attention paid to prices, many restaurant patrons across the country are switching to cheaper restaurants or thinking twice before going out to eat at all. Here are some tips that many restaurants are successfully applying now in order to boost their bottom line and attract customers during an economic downturn:
Prix Fixe Lunches and Dinners. These days, money-conscious diners are cutting out alcohol drinks, appetizers, expensive main entrees, and desserts. Many restaurants, especially higher-end ones, respond to this trend by offering irresistible prix fixe full-dinner menus and prix fixe lunches, at reduced prices. While prix-fixe dinner can still be perceived as expensive, such menu provides an excellent value to diners for an elegant meal and is an excellent solution for a restaurant to consistently bring in the revenue despite the economic challenges.
Adjusting the Menu and the Wine List. Another way for restaurants to stay strong during recession is to be flexible with the menu. Start offering two-for-one specials during non-peak week days such as Monday through Thursday. It also makes sense to further adjust the menu by taking more expensive menu items, such as higher-end steak cuts, off the menu. The restaurant can continue to verbally offer expensive items to select clients. Offer wine-discount days, for instance, each Monday when your customers can buy any bottle on the wine list for half-price. Diners now also tend to order less wine, and less expensive bottles of wine, with cocktails becoming more popular because they are perceived a bigger bang for the buck. Therefore, reduce purchasing expensive wines and stock up on other types of alcohol.
Comfort Food. Many restaurants have found out in the last 2 years that comfort food can be a good menu item during recession. Diners love basic, familiar, and cheap food staples, such as crispy chicken, grilled-cheese bars, hamburgers, meatballs, or pasta. With the latest findings revealing that quick service segments of the restaurant industry are doing better than high-end ones, remember to include comfort food on the menu. By replacing higher-end meals with cheeseburgers and sandwiches, many fine dining restaurants are able to actually do more volume and, thus, compensate for reduced consumer spending.
Rethink Your Bar Business. Make an extended bar menu with a large selection of affordable meals; feature reasonable prices; offer specials, such as any meal at $15 per plate or less, or any cocktail for $8 or less. Offer significantly reduced prices at the bar during non-peak days such as Monday through Thursday. Many restaurants now introduce Happy Hours and provide customers with great deals at the bar, such as drinking all you want for a fixed amount of money from 5 to 7 pm.
Provide Superb Customer Service, Be Creative and Fun. Sometimes, all it takes to make financially tired and overwhelmed customers to return to your establishment over and over again is enhancing customer experience through service and ambiance. Don’t forget to remain creative and use recession to give funny names to restaurant’s meals and specials. For instance, some restaurants call their menus Appetite Stimulus Plans, Bail-Out Menus, or the Madoff Menus. Other restaurants feature Frugal Fridays or Recession Thursdays by offering diners to eat anything on the menu for $10 or less.
There are other ways restaurants can improve their competitive advantage, such as further cutting costs, adjusting menu pricing, implementing new marketing efforts, and focusing on value. Despite the economy, going out to restaurants is still an important part of people’s lifestyles. If restaurants continue to innovate, via new menu items or enhanced customer service, consumers will continue to use restaurants, making them an essential part of their lives.
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